My youngest brother, whom we refer to lovingly (and accurately) as Crazy Eddie, has lived in Orlando, Fla. since before the Animal Kingdom was built, most of those years working as an entertainer for the largest media and entertainment company in the world. I kind of...

“Rob, can you put London in the shower?” my wife Lala asked and I happily obliged. My son London doesn’t mind vertical baths; in fact, they bring out the Pavarotti in him. So while I checked my email, I listened to songs concerning ferocious battles...

When my daughter Poppy and I arrived late to a birthday party at our local children’s museum, I was pretty amazed at what I surveyed: A room void of children and a table crowded with deviled eggs, pigs in a blanket, chocolate-covered strawberries and a floral center...

I don’t know if it’s because I spend a lot of my time in a classroom with teenagers who shrug when I query their opinions regarding pretty much anything, but lately I’ve been craving decisiveness. If I’m traveling, when the server asks what I’d like to order, I tell...

Sometimes living with an adolescent seems like a continual hostage-negotiation situation, only with tears instead of tear gas and chomping gum instead of loaded guns. My daughter’s daily demands have shifted as of late but, sadly for her, our parental stance hasn’t....

My friend Nell has always struck me as the kind of person who, if standing in line at the airport, might have told Mother Teresa to “hurry it up already.” I don’t know if it’s because she was raised in New York or survived the truth serum ’60s, but Nell...

On 83rd Street off Second Avenue in Manhattan, my wife Lala and I stopped to stare at a movie of two pinkish feet being massaged by hands stronger than I’d seen in any Baby Einstein video. We’d been hoofing it all day from the apartment where we were staying: north 60...

We’re frantically preparing for what most sober adults would consider a bad mix: full moon, fire, electronics, piles of candy bars and 15 seventh-grade girls wielding cell phones as if they were luminescent ID badges for the hormonally inconvenienced. My daughter...

When I started working at the school where I currently teach, my daughter Poppy was only a few months old. I was coaching soccer then so I’d tuck her car seat behind the net, knowing there’d be more misses than shots on goal that early in the season. Even though her...

My family and I are standing in line at a hotel in Green River, Utah, waiting for the breakfast that is included in the cost of our room. It’s just after 6 am. The four of us are bleary-eyed yet nervous because even though this buffet is free, it comes with some very...